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Pastimes : Kosovo -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Lacelle who wrote (17133)	10/6/2000 9:52:13 PM
From: George Papadopoulos	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 17770

tried to post this in the morning, don't think it worked must read article, especially the joke in the last sentence! Organised crime Kosovo's biggest headache: UN official says PRISTINA, Yugoslavia, Oct 4 (AFP) - Kosovo's war may be over, but the battle for power in the province is just hotting up with the UN administration pitched against organised crime rings who have their eyes on local government positions, according to the UN's regional administrator for Pristina. "There are ethnic problems here but they can be resolved with time. Economic violence is worse," Jean Guinard told AFP warning that individuals who have cashed in on Kosovo's post-war lawlesseness, could well end up in positions of legitimate authority after October 28 municipal elections. "Their political commitment is just a front for their thirst for power and their personal ambitions," Guinard said, careful to add, however, that many in the crop of politicians that has emerged since the 1998-1999 war against Yugoslav forces had honest concerns for the people of Kosovo. Until recently, UNMIK and the NATO-led peackeeping force KFOR have had their hands full controlling bloodshed between Serb and Roma minorities and Kosovo Albanians in the aftermath of the war. "Organised crime is not yet our top priority. It is hard enough getting the traffic to run smoothly here," UNMIK police spokesman for the Pristina region, Charley Johnson, said explaining that until now UN police had not had the resources or the intelligence to start tackling Kosovo's inherent crime networks. Despite the presence of around 46,000 international soldiers and policemen, crime rings have so far run circles round the law, smuggling drugs, arms, prostitutes, petrol and cigarettes and, it is widely suspected, laundering the proceeds through the many illegal buildings that have sprung up in Pristina since the war. "Even the local Mafias here were disrupted by the war, but they are reorganising themselves and the more time they have the better organised they will become," Johnson explained. "We have brought in some of Europe's best experts and they are working with the 3,000 odd local police officers we have been training up for less a year. Organised crime rings may feel they have had free range until now, but their time is running out." The province was shocked in September by the Mafia-style gunning down of Rexhep Luci, a widely respected ethnic-Albanian town planner who had tried to tighten the noose round the illegal construction business. This week, UNMIK hit back, seizing three buildings earmarked by Luci for demolition with KFOR troops ensuring security around the condemned buildings. "This is our way of showing that we are not going to be put off. The law is beginning to be applied now and not everyone likes it," Guinard said. The UN's local administrators are to hand power over gradually to those chosen by the people in October 28 elections, reserving the right to dismiss any elected councillors who "seriously misconduct themselves" or counter UN resolution 1244 which defines the UN mandate in Kosovo. Some 16 months after the UN arrived in Kosovo, a well-known joke has done the rounds: What's the difference between criminals and the UN police? The criminals are the ones who are organised.